Celine Song makes her directorial debut with ‘Past Lives’, a gentle yet heartbreaking portrayal of love from childhood to adulthood. One of the standout films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, ‘Past Lives’ sees Song branch out from playwriting into filmmaking and draws from her own experiences to craft one of the strongest films of 2023.
Opening in Seoul, audiences are introduced to Na Young and Hae Sung, two classmates who become childhood sweethearts, but when Na Young and her family move to Toronto they lose touch with each other. 12 years later, Na Young (Greta Lee), now called Nora, reconnects with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), and they revive their childhood friendship, talking over Skype and emails, but their rekindled friendship doesn’t last long. In order to focus on her writing, Nora suggests they stop talking. She then attends a writer’s retreat and meets Arthur (John Magaro), a fellow writer, and the two begin a relationship. Another 12 years passes and Arthur and Nora find themselves happily married residing in New York, both working as writers, but when Hae Sung travels to New York to visit Nora, these characters are forced to confront difficult emotions and question their own relationships.
Greta Lee delivers a breathtaking and career-defining performance as Nora, a nuanced and mesmerising portrayal that is earning the actress much deserved awards buzz for the 2024 season. Lee’s performance is devastatingly beautiful and elevated by the magnetic chemistry she shares with John Magaro and Teo Yoo, both of whom give knockout performances in their respective roles. The scenes Yoo and Lee share together are easily the best ones in the film, allowing audiences to see this complicated bond grow and flourish across multiple decades. Song’s script is filled with sparse dialogue that not only works well with the tone of the film, but also allows you to hang on to every word uttered on screen and truly invest yourself into these characters and their feelings.
Celine Song crafts a raw and tender film that blends together work from artists at their very best. From cinematographer Shabier Kirchner who creates tasteful visuals that make stunning use of both New York and Seoul landscapes, to editor Keith Fraase, whose work on the film let's audiences truly invest in these characters and their stories, while also seeing how their bonds evolve over time. Song’s direction turns 'Past Lives' into a film that sticks with you long after the credits have rolled, creating a gut-wrenching, emotional 105 minute film that leaves you asking the question of ‘what if?’. What if Nora and her family hadn't left Seoul, what if Nora and Hae Sung didn’t stop talking after they reconnected and many more similar questions.
'Past Lives' is easily one 2023’s best films and one of the strongest films to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in recent years. Celine Song delivers a magnificent directorial debut that hopefully marks the start of a long-lasting career as a filmmaker for the Korean-Canadian playwright. The film is an emotional gut punch, exploring complex themes like love, regret, and closure while also touching on the Korean concept of In-Yun, which in English means ‘fate’. Song uses this idea as a way to show what happens in the film, and what these characters are going through is fate, and that what they’re experiencing has been in the works for a long time, much like whatever will happen in their next lives and the ones after that.